A Pakistani legislator says her country's Ministry of IT is backing away from …

Last week we reported on the controversy over Pakistan's Request for Proposals for a sophisticated Internet censorship system. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has vowed to stop the distribution of "blasphemous and objectionable content" over the Pakistani Internet, and was seeking a system capable of blocking up to 50 million URLs. Internet freedom activists rallied against the proposal and secured commitments from several major IT vendors not to bid for the project.

Now the Pakistani government appears to be backing away from the proposal. A member of the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan's legislature, told the Express Tribune that Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology had withdrawn the project "due to the concern shown by various stakeholders."

Yet the Pakistani officials in charge of the proposal have yet to confirm the reports. A spokesman from the IT Ministry told the Express Tribune that it would release a statement on Tuesday, but Ars was unable to find such a statement on the agency's website.

Critics of the censorship scheme hailed the news, but warned the fight was far from over.

"While these reports are promising, there is still a possibility that the Pakistani government could try to covertly implement a similar system," said Mike Rispoli, a spokesman for the advocacy group Access. His group collected more than 18,000 signatures opposing the scheme.

Rispoli called for new legislation prohibiting the Pakistani government from implementing such a censorship regime in the future.

Timothy B. Lee
Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times. Emailtimothy.lee@arstechnica.com//Twitter@binarybits

I bet you that Senator Conroy (the Australian douchebag senator who wants to filter the internet. Of course, anyone who opposes this idea must of course be a supporter of child porn, because that's ostensibly the only reason they're wanting to filter things, and not at all to censor political views or help out their buddies in the entertainment industries... *cough cough*) is chatting to the Pakistani government right now...

Now the Pakistani government appears to be backing away from the proposal. A member of the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan's legislature, told the Express Tribune that Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology had withdrawn the project "due to the concern shown by various stakeholders."

I speak better politician than you, Tim. This means: "Pakistan has accepted the bid of an anonymous company for the construction of our censorship tool."

I'm sure there are plenty other companies that are well off enough to assist in the program. I doubt all these companies have the moral fortitude that this united front is claiming, either. It's possible someone broke rank with a backroom deal, but I'd like to believe they were actually serious.